into which manacles have worn walk not steadily so soon as they are unshackled, and a rash trial of their strength may cause the freed man to stumble at the first step. It may be thus with the mind as with the body; and right reason may interpose, for the sake of safety, that neither the mental nor the natural faculties be overstrained. The dark ages must, perhaps, be for some time passed away, before reason, on the one hand, maintain its dignity, and cease to be abused by the love of wonder and by idle fears; and, on the other, before it abandon the love of experimenting with false theories, and know the true measure of its power, till it see at last that the cause of religion and of science is but one; that of truth unmixed with error, or the genuine knowledge of the word and works of the God of truth.

While maintaining that miracles are possible, most readily do we admit that "it is quite another question what ought to be the nature of the evidence to render miracles at all probable; and what may be the accompanying conditions necessary to support a claim which, by its very nature, is subject to the greatest difficulties, and on which the boundless fraud and folly of mankind have accumulated the greatest possible quantity of suspicion." Yet the implied challenge which these words convey may be taken up in the defence of truth with unflinching confidence.

The truth of miracles must be tried by a test which nothing but miracles can abide, and which is fully competent to discriminate those works that are of God, and demonstrate the intervention of his power, from those which are of man, whether these be the delusions of wilful impostors, or originate in the reveries of misguided zealots. It is meet that there be a wide and clear separation and impassable barrier between any invention of an extravagant fancy or machination of a deceitful heart, between all that the art of man, by any possible combination or craftiness, could ever fabricate, the mind of man devise, the tongue of man tell, or the hands of man do, and the unerring counsel and holy purposes of an omniscient God, and the miraculous work of the hand of the Almighty. It is meet that, if the word be of God, the scriptural miracles should stand a test such as none but God could have supplied, such as should set at defiance all the fraud of mankind—seemingly boundless though it be-and mock the impious pretensions of daring and deceiving mortals, who would try to mimic the works of omnipotence, and say that their word was the word of God. It is meet that there should be the fullest security against the belief of false or pretended miracles, and that what the Lord hath wrought should be tried by a test which they never could abide. And here, as in all things else, true religion associates with true reason; it is meet that there should

be such a test, and it hath seemed meet unto the Lord to give it.

It has hitherto been our object to show that the prophets of Israel were inspired, and that miracles are proveable. And nothing more is needful, in the first instance, to be premised, in order that it may farther be made manifest that, in imparting supernatural events, God hath not left himself without a witness to the sons of men, not only of the possibility, but of the absolute certainty of the truth of the Christian religion, as inevitably deducible from the plainest exercise of unbiased reason.

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"All prophecies," as Hume asserts, are real miracles, and as such only can be admitted as proofs of any revelation. If it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretel future events, it would be absurd to employ any prophecy as an argument for a divine mission or authority from Heaven."* All prophecies, therefore, which are visibly true-instead of being 66 a subject of derision," as our scoffer, true to his character, affirmed-are, in his own words, "real miracles"-"proofs of revelation or authority from Heaven." Prophecy is a demonstration of Divine knowledge; as miracles, in the restricted acceptation of the word, are a demonstration of Divine power. Prophecies being true, revelation is established as a fact; and there is thus full and decisive proof of revelation as there is also of a miracle. There is experience of the truth of both. What has been may be again. And experience, even on this general principle, prepares the way of the Christian evidence, and demonstrates that neither a miracle nor an exercise of Divine power, nor yet revelation nor the communication of Divine knowledge, would be a new thing upon the earth. It might fairly be argued from hence, if we could only resort to plausibility, that it is not improbable that miracles might have been wrought in confirmation of more full revelation of the Divine will than prophecy imparts.

Prophecy, in a multiplicity of instances, is a revelation of the judgments of God. But in those scriptures of which the inspiration is attested by existing ruins, the name of God is thus proclaimed: "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." Shadowy, preparatory, and avowedly temporary as was the Mosaic dispensation, yet its record bears frequent testimony to the everlasting mercy as well as to the perfect holiness of the God of Israel. God, it is written, hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he should repent and live. Mercy rejoiceth over judgment. And a more benig

* Hume's Essay on Miracles.

nant but not less divine commission was given to the prophets, than that of predicting the punishment of nations and the devastation of kingdoms. True it is that they revealed the greatest desolations that have come upon the earth, and described with minutest accuracy the issue of the unrepented iniquity of every people, whose criminality in the sight of Heaven they described, and whose doom they denounced. And, our enemies being witnesses, the once fairest portions of the globe bear the exact and defined impress, in a manifold variety of forms, of every mark with which the prophets of Israel stamped their destiny. The coming to pass of the things which they foretold shows that they were men by whom God hath indeed spoken; and they are constituted thus, in the verdict of right reason, the servants and the prophets of the living and omniscient God, who ruleth over all, and who executeth judgment and justice in the earth. Yet the brand of the Divine judgments which it was given unto them to bear is but the badge of their inspiration, the seal of their great and chief office, and their warrant for bearing, before all nations and to all ages, the testimony which, by them, God has given of his Son. In accrediting their Divine commission, and in giving ocular demonstration of the truth of their word, every fulfilled prediction thus testifies of those who testified of Jesus. The witness which they bear to him is more than man could have given, and such as never could pertain to any religious system of mere human origin. At sundry times and in divers manners they spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost; and the same spirit of truth which revealed to them in distant ages the most momentous facts pertaining to the history of the world, such as were then unheard of, but are now obvious to the sight of all men, also made known to them the purpose of God, and his promise to the fathers concerning the "Messiah" and the new and everlasting covenant, foretold by prophets as well as confirmed by miracles, which he was to establish with the sons of men. The inspiration of the prophets once proved-even as skeptics have substantiated the proof beyond denial-they stand forth before the world not only as having been the faithful heralds of judgments that have fallen on the nations, but, now that the effect of every vision has been seen, they have a right to be heard, and, in all reason, to be believed, by all who, seeing, will see, or hearing, will hear-as heralds of the gospel of peace, and witnesses for God concerning the work of redemption-even as assuredly as they have been in the awards of his judgments on the earth. If, indeed, they testify of Jesus, they give a warrant for believing in his miracles and in his word, which owes not its origin to mere human testimony; and they give a peculiar sanction to that testimony, such as could

not have come from uninspired lips. If the words of martyrs need confirmation in an unbelieving world, it surely may be given by the voice of prophets. Did men, who could not have spoken as they did speak save only by the Spirit of God, testify of Jesus, then, were it even true that mere human testimony, if it stood alone, would be incapable of proving a miracle, such a task is not, in fact, exacted of it; it does not stand alone, but, though it were the highest that men could impart, other testimony more than human, which no sophistry can shake, is conjoined with it; testimony in guaranty of the gospel of Jesus, even that of the word of God by his prophets, which must ever baffle all human power to invalidate or overthrow, even as it infinitely surpassed all human ingenuity to have invented or conceived. And thus at once a line of demarcation, such as no mortal hand could have traced, may be drawn between all pretended miracles, in support of any cunningly-devised fable, though wrought with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, and the works of Him who came to do the will of the Father, and to finish his work. And looking to the word of God by the prophets, seeing that he hath spoken by them, it may rightly be asked, before faith be yielded to the testimony of man, What saith the scripture?

That the prophets did testify of Jesus is another and distinct portion of the Christian evidence, afterward to be touched on. The fact, as attested both by heathen and Jewish authors, that, from the writings of the ancient priests or prophets, the expectation of the coming of a great Deliverer, who, arising from Judea, was to triumph over the nations— was not only prevalent, but universal over the whole East at the very time of the commencement of the Christian era— if it be not enough to stagger the boldest skepticism, is enough to show that the presumed connexion between the prophecies of the Old Testament and the events recorded in the New is not a mere gratuitous assumption, but demands, in its proper place, the closest attention and the most candid scrutiny or search on the part of all who seek to found their convictions on reason, and who are not so devoid of all rationality as to be careless of disowning the testimony and rejecting the counsel of God.

But the prominent point-admitting not of debate-which has here to be specially regarded, is that the miracles of Christ are represented as wrought in confirmation of the truth that he was the Messiah, of whom all the prophets had testified. From the words of an apostle we have seen the refutation of the modern argument against miracles, or the denial of the saying of the scoffers of the present age. And from the words of Christ himself, when he was questioned concerning his Messiahship, we learn the true connexion between proph

ecy and miracles; we see that the credibility of the gospel, in reference even to the external evidences, stands not alone on the testimony of man; and we hear his appeal to reason, his claim to be believed, his own reference to the testimony of the prophets as well as to the miracles which he wrought. In direct answer to the question, Art thou he that should come? Jesus answered in the words of the prophet Isaiah, and appealed to his miracles in confirmation of their fulfilment. "And John, calling unto him two of his disciples, sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another? And in the same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits, and unto many that were blind he gave sight. And Jesus answering, said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." John vii., 19–23.

Jesus, the author of the Christian faith, is explicitly represented as directly and expressly referring to the testimony borne to him by the prophets, as hence founding his claim to be believed, and as charging those with being inconsistent and inexcusable who professed to believe in the prophets and who did not believe in him. "If," says he, in language as unlike to that of every impostor as were all his words and all his actions, "I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man; but these things I say, that ye might be saved. But I have greater witness than that of John for the works that the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. And the Father himself which hath sent me hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me that ye might have life. I receive not honour from men. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" John v., 31–47.

Christ did not bear witness of himself; he did not receive testimony from man; nor did he receive honour from men.